Project Details

Operator: TransCanada

Current capacity: Million cubic feet per day

Proposed capacity: 2,000-3000 Million cubic feet per day

Length: 670 kilometers

Status: Proposed

Start Year:

Background

Coastal GasLink Pipeline Ltd., a subsidiary of TransCanada, is proposing to develop a project to deliver natural gas British Columbia to the LNG Canada gas liquefaction facility proposed to be developed by Shell Canada Ltd. and its partners near Kitimat, B.C. Investment for the project was to be finalized by 2016 and construction was projected to begin in 2017.[2] However, the project was delayed in July 2016 due to a lack of demand on the global energy market.[3] The project as it stands will include the construction of a 670km-long, 48in-diameter pipeline to provide between two and three billion cubic feet a day (bcf/d) of natural gas that can be expanded to 5bcf/d through the addition of up to seven compressor stations, while a single compressor station will be built initially.[4]

Despite the delay in final investments, in March 2017, it was reported that the province of British Columbia had reached agreements with 17 of the 20 First Nations along the proposed pipeline route of the Coastal GasLink Pipeline Project.[5]

In May of 2019, TC Energy, formerly TransCanada, introduced the subcontractor that will be doing the construction on sections 6 and 7 of the company’s 670 km pipeline to local business leaders at the Smithers District Chamber of Commerce monthly luncheon. Pacific Atlantic Pipeline Construction (PAPC) is a Canadian subsidiary of Bonatti Group, an oil and gas general contractor based in Italy. The company will be building the two sections of the pipeline that run approximately 165 kilometres from south of Burns Lake to south of Hazelton.[6]

In July of 2019, Canada's national energy regulator, the National Energy Board (NEB), ruled that British Columbia rightly has the jurisdiction to handle the environmental assessment, giving local authorities the power over the pipeline's future.[7]

Opposition

In 2015, TransCanada rerouted its planned Coastal Gaslink pipeline, moving the path 5 kilometers north to avoid structures erected by the Unist’ot’en along the Morice River; however the pipeline would still cut through the clan’s territory.[8]

The pipeline project has garnered international attention due to protests by the Unist’ot’en (Dark House) of the Wet’suwet’en and their supporters, but by May of 2019 CGL had legal agreements with all of the 20 elected chiefs and councils along the pipeline’s route, thereby undermining local opposition.[9]